Conventional electrical outlet boxes or floor boxes are difficult to install, since the adjustment of the height of these boxes is limited. Accordingly, this requires the installer to make adjustments in the support for the floor box to ensure that the floor box is flush with the floor surface. Moreover, these prior floor boxes are difficult to install flush with the surface of the poured concrete floor. These conventional floor boxes required the installer to use various time consuming processes for leveling the floor box. If the floor box is not leveled prior to pouring the concrete floor, then the top of the floor box would not be parallel or flush with the floor's surface.
An example of a prior floor box which attempts to overcome the above-mentioned problems is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,343,704 to Terry, which is incorporated herein by reference. The patent to Terry discloses a floor box that is adjustable in height by sawing an elongated cylindrical portion of the housing either flush with the floor or at a desired height above and parallel to the floor. The Terry floor box utilizes a special cover assembly having a cover holder with two downwardly depending flanges that are pivotally coupled to a mounting or leveling ring. The leveling ring is inserted into the cylindrical portion of the housing, and then cemented thereto for fixedly securing the leveling ring to the housing. The cover holder pivots about a single axis on the leveling ring to permit flush or parallel mounting of the cover holder with the floor's surface. Accordingly, the Terry floor box requires cementing the ring to the housing at a particular position, i.e., with the ring's pivotal axis position at a right angle to the direction in which the floor box is tilted. Thus, the Terry floor box is difficult to install properly.
Another example of a prior floor box which attempts to overcome the problems of the Terry floor box is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,832 to Curtis et al, which is incorporated herein by reference. The patent to Curtis et al discloses a floor box having a cover plate assembly utilizing a special ball ring to mount the cover flush with the floor. This special ball ring is cemented to the floor box for securing it thereto. Accordingly, the installer must be careful when cementing the ball ring to the housing to obtain the proper positioning of the cover.
Both floor boxes disclosed by the Terry patent and the Curtis et al patent have leveling rings cemented to the floor boxes. Thus, these prior art floor boxes can not be re-leveled once the leveling ring is cemented in place. Moreover, these prior floor box are only capable of handling one type of wires, i.e., either power wires or communication wires, not both. The National Electrical Code (N.E.C.) requires separation of power services from communication services, such as telephone or computer lines. Accordingly, communication wires must be physically separated from high voltage power wires to prevent accidental contact with the high voltage wires during installation of the communication wires. Neither the Terry patent nor the Curtis et al patent discloses separating communication wires from high voltage wires in a single floor box.
This invention addresses these problems in the art, along with other needs which will become apparent to those skilled in the art once given this disclosure.